Follow the Dotted Line
by godcomplexLoading
Summary: Name: Rio Grande. Sex: Female. Age: Twenty one and two months. Reason for volunteering: ...plainly put, Rio was bored. A small one-shot I wrote about the Weighted Companion Cube, chronicling her story from being a bored test subject to one of the most loved things in all of Aperture.


001: Liable Interest

Name

_Alice Rio Grande._

Sex

_All the time.__ Female._

Age?

_Twenty-one and two months,_

Reason for volunteering?

_Personal._

She was extremely grateful that was an option. She had worried a bit about that question, but it turned out that reading the manual _did_ pay off. The thick book was lying forgotten in her room back "home", as she had been up for the past several nights memorizing its tiny, tightly packed words that made rules about things she didn't even know could have existed. She was sure all would be explained later, but most of the rules in the book were kind of frightening, even to her. One of those rules, however, had just saved her hide a load of trouble.

_If a subject lists "personal" reasons for any question, the endless variables attached to that statement shall allay any attempts to interrogate the subject further. "Personal" reasons may be used in exchange for problems too complicated or emotion-related to be explained in any brief manner._

Of course, she didn't appreciate their use of the word "interrogate", but anything to avoid admitting that she had no real reason for doing what she was doing. It was not for the money, the science, the glory, the knowledge, the thrill, no, none of that. Oh, she was sure she would love all of that; it would be a welcome ride compared to her usual shelter-hopping ways. But that was not her main reason for doing it. It had seemed like a fairly interesting thing, something to break the monotony of her perfectly grey and energy-less life living on the streets. It looked like it would be a fun game to play until she got kicked out like she always did.

Plainly put, Rio was _bored_.

A feeling that, so far, had not been alleviated. She had been awed by the show of technology and _white_ she'd encountered when she'd first been brought here, but she'd spent the last two hours in a room with nothing to keep her company these papers. The guy that had been in here had had to leave and she saw absolutely no reason to stop him. It was her and the walls at this point. The scratching of the pen was almost nonstop as she began to sign without discrimination now.

_Signature here . . . Initials here . . . Full name here . . . _

Some of the questions were the usual: drug history, sexual activity, criminal record, all the usual stuff asked at job interviews, but some _other _questions were so outlandish that she had more than once wondered if this were a prank. But then she would see the Aperture logo and she would chuckle to herself and dive back into the paperwork. _Oh Aperture,_ one would think, _what a silly place you are._

It wasn't that everyone knew about Aperture. It was just that…everyone _knew_ about Aperture. Ask a person what they did or what they were for and you'd get a vague shrug and a vacant expression, but everyone _knew_ about them. When she saw their ad, she had felt a little whisper of something inside her chest, a little squiggle of excitement she couldn't suppress, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Rio signed on line after line, agreeing to addendum after addendum. She didn't even know what half of these words were. What she wouldn't give for a dictionary right now. She hated when people used words she didn't know.

She sighed again and flipped the page, and was surprised to find herself faced with a panel of flawless white. She flipped back through the papers, entertaining herself for all of two seconds with the illustrations and stray funny words she caught. She stopped at one page, picked a random line, and read aloud, her voice in a sarcastic imitation of the monotone she had been interviewed with.

_"By signing here you agree that you are to be held personally and fully responsible for any and all harm that comes to your person due to reasons of acid, fire, gunshot wounds, buckshot wounds, laser wounds, heavy falling objects, high impact with a solid object, slow impact with a spiky object, transportation to another dimension, transportation to a dangerous location, radiation poisoning, motion sickness, rabies, influenza, any other sickness imagined, condensation, precipitation, perspiration, inspiration or anticipation."_

She smiled to herself and pushed her spinny chair around, spreading the papers all around the room. She stopped when her eyes caught sight of the fat line painted on the floor. She stopped and reached out her foot to touch it experimentally. Nothing. They were everywhere, though. Aperture did love their dotted lines.

"Welcome, Ms. Grande, to _Aperture_!"

* * *

002: Don't Speak

Alice wiped her wrist across her brow, breathing heavily. There was no indication that the test was anywhere near done, but it was so hard to tell with this place. She'd lost count of the times she'd walked through those doors so triumphantly and found herself faced with more obstacles. She had been at this for what felt like hours now…though, really, it was hard to tell. Weren't the side effects of the sedative they were giving her "possible loss of grip on time and space"? She was having trouble remembering now. She'd have to check when she was done with this.

"This", of course, being a test. The boys did love giving her all kinds of tests. She was their "number one", or so she'd been told. It was a "huge honor", or so she'd been told. She didn't really care. She was just having fun. And, at the end of it all, she would get 60 bucks. She could probably buy herself a real coat with that kinda money.

She blinked and pushed her mind back on track. She was supposed to be testing now.

_Right_.

She peered around her cover, her grip tightening on the strange contraption in her hand. She had no idea what it was, and all her usual tests didn't work. She'd taken it through two rooms so far on sheer dumb luck, but it didn't look like that was going to get her out of the way of these turrets. In fact, it didn't seem to do anything at all. It was supposed to be some kind of "bubble gun", whatever that way. She'd stopped even questioning what they shoved in her hands now; she just knew to hit the button and pray it worked. And in times like now, when she was facing what felt like a whole army of turrets (there were actually only two), she really wished she believed in a god.

She shifted her weight slightly, holding the gun-thing up to look at it again. It was small and light, but had so many bits and bobs hanging off of it that it was near impossible to hang onto, even with the handhold. There was a blue light flashing near the base, though what its purpose was was completely unknown to her. The first two times she'd fired it, absolutely nothing had happened, and so here she was, cowering and praying to a random scientist. There was an exposed wire dangling that she constantly had to avoid; she got electrocuted enough on purpose, and she wasn't keen to file for overtime.

She could hear the turrets powering down from the inactivity; it was pretty easy to know when they were safe. They were very loud and cumbersome, and heaven help you if you were paired with some. They were heavy and sometimes shot at you and were so obvious that all stealth was futile. She'd heard the guys were working on ones that talked, though…she couldn't wait to see _that. _They'd be total idiots, she was sure. Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Finally, as complete silence fell, Alice threw caution to the wind and sprang out of her shelter. Just as the turrets began their slow torturous ascent back to life, she pulled the trigger framtically.

She barely registered the weird noise the gun made before she recognized the sounds of danger and dove behind the plate directly in front of her, scrambling to press her back against it and waiting for the sound of bullets ricocheting mere centimeters from the back of her head.

That sound never came.

"Hm?"

The sound was involuntary; testing didn't require very much speaking, and sometimes Rio found herself forgetting she even had a voice. Her head tilted to the side as she realized the total silence was far from ordinary. She gulped, swallowing her beating heart, and dared to peek out from behind the corner. Her eyes landed on…nothing. Absolutely nothing. The white floor was empty. The turrets were gone.

Her head tilted to the side like a curious dog's and, similar to a dog, she crawled out of shelter on her arms and knees, prepared for anything. When nothing happened, she sat back on the balls of her feet, her arms resting on her knees. The mystery gun hung limply from her hands, and her eyes were trained up in surprise. Her mouth dropped open in shock as the sight registered belatedly in her drug-addled brain.

The turrets were still there, but they were floating up in little bubbles made of…something. It was see-through and iridescent, and it looked like they were contained in little bubbles. They were slowly rotating and seemed to be completely at the mercy of the air currents around them.

_Oh._

_Right._

_Bubble gun._

One drifted slowly towards her and, against her better judgment, Rio reached out and touched the bubble. A delighted smile spread over her face as it made a _boung! _sound and bounced again from her, rotating on its side. The turret moved its legs experimentally, but did nothing more. Every now and then, the two bubbles would touch each other, and they'd bounce each other, leaving Rio in another silent giggle fit.

It made her extremely sad when the warning buzzer went off, signaling the end of the test. She got to her feet and slung the little bubble-gun over her shoulder, careful to avoid the exposed wire. She walked happily along the dotted line, practically skipping as she slammed her hand down on the button and went through the circular doors.

_Subject is experiencing near-dangerous delirium and is exhibiting an unusual sense of calm and joy in the face of danger. Subject has not spoken in several weeks save for humming songs from classical musicals. Test results have shot up, and subject is also showing extreme creativity in the event of sudden and catastrophic failure._

Rio hummed to herself as she settled down to sleep. Tests had been fun today, and she had been promised another run with the bubble gun when they fixed the obvious design flaws. She thought back to the day she had joined, when she had been so bored, and chuckled. There was not a boring day here.

She rolled over and stared at the screen beside her bed, which blinked the Aperture logo at her in a maddeningly slow pace. She touched it and it hummed to life. It took only a moment for her to find what she was looking for. The peaceful sounds of screamo/techno mash-ups filled the room, and she rolled over to go to sleep.

This was much better than smooth jazz.

* * *

003: Moving Up and On

_Shiny._

That was the first word that came to mind as she looked at this newer model. This was a pretty gun they were giving her now. It took her a few tries to get it on her arm; the straps were hard to maneuver around the science-y bit. Once she wrangled it on, she swung it around a few times to get used to the weight of it. She wondered what _this _one did. With a happy sigh, she stepped back and turned on her heel, ready to start.

The button was pressed, the doors were open, and the test began. Rio automatically flinched in case of turrets, but the tell-tale whirring was absent from this room. Besides, turrets didn't usually show up in the first section. So, calming herself down, she straightened her shirt one-handedly and walked forward.

The room was completely white, with darker panels here and there. By now she knew to follow the lines, but they led to a door that was set into the opposite wall. It was far too far up for her to jump, and there was nothing to climb on. Which left only one option.

She looked at the little contraption attached to her arm. _C'mon, _she urged. _Tell me your secrets._

She knew the drill by now, and there was no point in wasting time. Just to be safe, she lifted her arm and aimed at a wall at such an angle that whatever came out of the gun couldn't ricochet and kill her. There were two buttons on this one...not really sure which one to push, she just played eenie-meenie-minie-moe and fired.

The sound was weird, but strangely comforting, but her arm dropped to her side as she stared at the seemingly useless blue sphere that was now swirling prettily on the wall. She looked down at the gun in her hand.

_Huh._

What was this for?

Rio briefly debated abandoning the test, since she really had no idea what to do now, but she decided to stick it out for the sake of the test. She wondered what that blue circle was supposed to do. And what was this one again? She sniffed and thought back to her brief explanation, which she hadn't really paid very much attention to.

_Ahh yes…_ She giggled silently as she remembered the full title: _the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device_. So…it made portals? She was grateful that they told her what she was testing now; they kind of had to, after that horrible incident with the gun that threw blades of razor sharp metal. Rio was glad she was too sick to test that day. The radiation poisoning had seemed horrible at the time, but looking back, it probably saved her from a much worse fate.

Curiosity won out quickly over what little common sense she had left, and Rio swung the gun up again, this time aiming at a wall on the other side of the room. This time, the swirling circle was _orange_, and something didn't quite look about its center. It looked…kinda transparent. Rio sighed and walked towards the wall, staring up at the so-called portal, not entirely sure what the hell she was supposed to do now. She couldn't reach it now.

_Crap._

If this was a one-time deal, she was _totally_ fucked.

In the science of experimentation, Rio went at it for the next four hours. She felt rather stupid when she finally figured it out, but her little chest was puffed up with pride as she slammed her hand (and Portal gun) down on the button. That pride deflated just a bit when, instead of a waiting room, she was greeted with another testing chamber, this one complete with spikes and what looked disturbingly like death rays.

Rio gulped. But she looked at the now-trusty Portal gun in her hand, and smiled cheerily. Yes, she would get through this.

* * *

004: I'll Haunt Your Face Off

Rio took a deep breath. This felt very strange. She shifted slightly in her bed, which wasn't easy considering she was tied down. She could hear scientists talking, and wondered what they were talking about. Maybe when she found her voice box, she'd ask them. The wires were going _into her head_, and she could actually feel every one of them. Years of science couldn't stave off the basic human instinct to tug, but she kept herself under control long enough for them to administer the sedative.

While she was under, Rio kept thinking. It wasn't that hard, really. She didn't really think about very much, though, though she did spend a fair amount of time pondering just how boring it was being sedated. She had signed up for this, her last experiment, after it had become painfully (literally) obvious that all the drugs and strain her body had put up with was actually killing her. In the spirit of science, though, and the fact that she was still having a blast, she agreed to do one last run, though this one looked like it would be far less thrilling than anything else she had ever done.

She'd heard a fair bit about the cubes; she had to work with them, for pete's sake. They'd started out as nothing more than weighted boxes to get things done, but recently they'd started working ones that actually _did_ things. She wasn't quite sure what this latest one was for, but apparently, they needed her brain for it.

She sighed as she waited for something to happen. She wasn't sure if seconds or hours or days passed by, but eventually she gave up waiting. She was going to have to entertain herself. She began to hum to herself, but she quickly forgot all the tunes, and instead began to watch movies. When she wasn't testing, she got to watch whatever videos or old cassettes Aperture provided her with, so her choices were extremely limited. When she ran out of movies, she began to relive her tests, laughing, crying, cringing, and crapping along with herself again and again.

This was getting very boring now.

Rio sighed deeply again, a weird sound when one had no voice. She tried to move, but she didn't seem to have any arms and legs. Well that was interesting. She tried to hum again, but it seemed she had no voice box. Oh…hadn't she lost it? Well, when she got her limbs back, she'd have to look for it. Her throat felt very dry, and she desperately wanted some water. Unfortunately, mime only got you so far around here, so she'd have to ask for it.

As boredom and time set it, Rio the Companion Cube began to watch _Cara Mia_, humming along to all the parts she knew.

* * *

005: Stabbed in the Center

_Wait._

Rio didn't understand. She didn't understand at all. She stared up at this face, this pretty pretty face, and she wondered what was going on. She had just found this face, and she liked it very much. She loved it, in fact. She would be talking and talking to it, if she could just figure out how. And the face loved her too. She could tell. She could feel it.

But something wasn't right. It felt very hot all of a sudden, and the face was getting further and further away. The girl hadn't talked, just like Rio didn't talk, but Rio liked her very much. But now she was getting far away.

_Why was she getting far away?_

When she found her voice, she'd have to ask.

It was _very_ hot in here.

* * *

006: For All the Stars

It wasn't hot anymore. It was just dark. And cold.

But still Rio waited for the girl with the orange coat to come and get her. She would. She knew she would.

* * *

007: What She Said

It was hot again. Not as hot as before, but…oh. This was interesting. Rio seemed to be in motion. She would have screamed, if she had a throat, or a mouth, or lungs, or a body. Instead, she just sailed silently, humming along to whatever song came to mind.

She bounced along the ground. She would have blinked in the sun, if she had eyes, but instead, she just became aware of a girl.

_The girl._

Chell.

If Rio had a body, she would have cried, embraced, laughed, and sang. But instead, she just sat there, and waited for her friend to come and pick her up.


End file.
